Gradual ordering in mollusk shell nacre: theoretical modeling and experimental results

Biominerals have attracted the attention of materials scientists, biologists, and mineralogists as well as physicists~because of their remarkable mechanical properties and incompletely elucidated formation mechanisms. Nacre, or mother-of-pearl, is a layered biomineral composite that is widely studied because of its self-assembled, efficient and accurately ordered architecture results in remarkable resistance to fracture. New experimental tools enable us to obtain new information about the organization and structure of the mineral~tablets in nacre. Our experimental and theoretical investigations yield strong evidence that orientational ordering~of these tablets is the result of dynamical self-organization.